Race and Entertainment, Essay Example

Race in the contemporary world plays a vital role in shaping one’s overall perspective about the world and people’s perspective about the individual. The problem in today’s world is not about whether or not people are being portrayed, but it is the question of how they are being portrayed and if they are given equal treatment. In addition, there’s the question of authenticity in the way certain races are being portrayed and how it can affect public’s perspective about that particular race. There can be times where certain group of people might be stereotyped, intentionally or not, and the public might take it to the next level and create a negative blunder out of it. In this case, entertainment plays an enormous role in shaping public’s view about certain races or particular groups of people.  In order to change or correct the way some races or groups are portrayed there are two variants with which the public persona can most possibly change or be modified which are the active involvement of the people of the same race as the one being portrayed in the entertainment and a neutral public committee should be established in order to specifically review movies and give rating on the accuracy and stereotypical or racially offensive factors on the movie.

First and foremost it is crucial to note the fact that media today is playing a dominant role in shaping people’s views about certain people, in particular entertainment substance.  The most important entertainment branch currently popular and internationally influential is the movie industry in the entertainment.  There have been numerous instances where certain races or ethnic groups have not been properly depicted and in many times this has created an uproar in the public and was the reason of many issues and controversies. In order to have a fair representation or a depiction of a certain group it would be useful to include certain prominent individuals, who are in movie industry, to come and participate in the movie screening and give advice on what to modify and to overall fill in the blanks. For instance, when Mel Gibson was screening his Passion of the Christ the movie overall gained relatively large amount of  controversy. His movie would look more credible to the Jewish community if he actually had experts on movie industry who happened to be of Jewish descent to go and participate in his movie screening and perhaps modify some of the things depicted in the movie. This would have given the movie more expanded audience in the Jewish community and would also change anything that seemed racially offensive to Jewish people.  The same should apply to other races and ethnic groups which they themselves come to see as provocative, controversial, or just simply misleading. These groups should be established for all groups that have some sense of collectiveness in their community.

Another way to bring fairness in the portrayal of races and ethnic groups in the movie entertainment is to have an independent body, neutral of any industries and composed of people from different ethnic groups to decided how should racially sensitive parts should be depicted and it should be sent to the producer of the movie who in his case should do the modifications. In the case of rejection the producer and the movie shall lose major credibility in the movie circles since the committee is a very influential body  composed of very prominent individuals.  This way the producers would have no other choice but to collaborate with this organization to make sure that the racial and ethnic sensitivities are proper and not offensive. This committee would greatly help rating the films and the authenticity of historical or cultural facts about certain group of people or an ethnic group. The public will also benefit from this by watching something that is not at all provocative and stereotypical.

All in all, the movie entertainment can be considered as the international language for the entertainment industry. Also, the movie entertainment business is quite influential in building people’s perspectives about others and about life itself. There is, however, the question of authenticity where certain races and ethnic groups are being portrayed. It is obvious that the issue has been around for a while and is also a contemporary problem but it is not an unsolvable one.  It is important to take into account the perspectives of the members of that same race or ethnic group about whom the movie part of the  whole movie itself is being made.